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Human Rights Groups Muster Forces in a Vigil, Rally, and Funeral Procession Aimed at Drawing Attention to Violations at the Stewart Detention Center
Press conference and vigil will be Friday, November 20th, at 10:00 a.m., in Lumpkin town square
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
CONTACT:
Anton Flores-Maisonet, Alterna, 706-302-9661, Anton@alternacommunity.com
Azadeh Shahshahani, ACLU of Georgia, 404-574-0851, ashahshahani@acluga.org
Atlanta – Georgia Detention Watch today announces a vigil, co-sponsored by several local and national human rights organizations, aimed at focusing attention on the treatment afforded to immigrants detained at the CCA-run Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin. The vigil is expected to draw hundreds from across the United States, including individuals directly impacted by inhumane immigration detention policies and practices. The action follows two previous vigils, several humanitarian visitations, and release of a report by Georgia Detention Watch which documented violations of immigration detention standards at the Stewart Detention Center.
"Roberto Martinez Medina and I would be the same age if he were still alive today," reflected Anton Flores-Maisonet of Alterna and Georgia Detention Watch on the passing of a 39-year-old immigrant from Mexico detained at Stewart, who died of a heart infection on March 11, 2009. To date, many questions about the circumstances surrounding his death remain unanswered. "This death at CCA's Stewart Detention Center and the allegations that the center fails to provide basic medical care to detainees should be of great concern to the County whose name it bears," Flores-Maisonet observed.
A silent funeral march from Lumpkin Town Square to the Stewart Detention Center will memorialize the death of Roberto Martinez Medina and pay tribute to the more than 100 other immigrants nationwide who have died in immigration detention since October 2003
Azadeh Shahshahani, ACLU of Georgia National Security/Immigrants' Rights Project Director and Chair of Georgia Detention Watch, sees the vigil and funeral procession as the local reflection of a time in which “significant concerns are being raised nationally about the inhumane treatment of immigrants at detention centers and the unnecessary detention of many immigrants in the first place, often for prolonged periods and without being afforded basic due process.”
§ Rally on the Square
Bryan Holcomb, a former high-level manager at Corrections Corporation of America which owns and operates Stewart Detention Center, is the key speaker for the rally on the Square in Lumpkin. He will provide an exposé on the depth of irregularities at CCA-run detention centers and prisons, including high sexual-assault rates. Such abuses led in part to the federal government’s ending the incarceration of children at CCA's T. Don Hutto prison in Texas.
Herbert Abdul, a former immigrant detainee, will also speak at the rally. Mr. Abdul was detained for months at the Atlanta City Detention Center and the Etowah County Detention Center.
Other speakers at the rally will include: Silky Shah, Organizing and Outreach Coordinator with the Detention Watch Network; Samuel Brooke, Attorney with the Southern Poverty Law Center Immigrant Justice Project; as well as Flores and Shahshahani.
§ About the Stewart Detention Center
Located in rural Southwest Georgia, the Stewart Detention Center detains over 1,750 men, primarily from Latin America. Stewart is run by the Nashville-based Corrections Corporation of America, the country's largest private prison corporation.
§ Conditions at Stewart: Substandard and Inhumane
An April 2009 report by Georgia Detention Watch on conditions at Stewart documented violations of ICE’s own detention standards at the facility. The report charged that food and medicine are withheld as punishment and that solitary confinement is routinely imposed without a disciplinary hearing.
The organizations sponsoring Friday's vigil include:
American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia
American Friends Service Committee
Amnesty Atlanta
Center for Constitutional Rights
Coalicion de Lideres Latinos-CLILA
Detention Watch Network
Georgia Detention Watch
Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights
International Action Center
Nipponzan Myohoji Atlanta Dojo
Rights Working Group
School of the Americas Watch
Southern Poverty Law Center Immigrant Justice Project
Texans United for Families
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Georgia Detention Watch is a coalition of organizations and individuals that advocates alongside immigrants to end the inhumane and unjust detention and law enforcement policies and practices directed against immigrant communities in our state. Our coalition includes activists, community organizers, persons of faith, lawyers, and many more.
For more on Georgia Detention Watch, visit our website: http://www.georgiadetentionwatch.com
